Title: The End of Suburbia, oil depletion and the collapse of the American Dream Director: Gregory Greene Release year: 2004
What is the central argument or narrative of the film?
Suburbia promises space, upward mobility, family life, convenience and affordability which has led to over half of the American population living in suburban areas. This becomes a problem as we are faced with peak oil and a lack of resources as no other way of life uses fossil fuel energy to the degree that suburbia does. This film calls the development of suburban living as the “greatest misallocation of resources in the modern world.”
What sustainability problems does the film draw out?
The development of suburban life in itself is and was a large organizational sustainability problem. Now we have become so dependent on this organization that it becomes a cultural and behavioral problem as well. The suburban idea was created out of a need for an antidote to the slums, noise and stench of the early industrializing cities. Instead of using our wealth to develop the quality within the cities themselves people began to spread out and move away from them. The initial suburbs that formed were actually in the country with no shopping centers present and everyone very wealthy with large Victorian vistas in park like settings. In the 1920s automobile development brought about the first types of automobile suburbs and the American dream quickly transformed into owning a country-style home. 500,000 homes sprung up in 1946, 1 million in 1947 with numbers continuing to increase throughout the decade. The middle class became widespread into the countryside.
This movement never slowed. In our modern society it is not uncommon to travel fifty to one hundred miles per day in a personal vehicle which is only cost effective due to the availability of cheap energy. We consume 10 calories of hydrocarbon energy for every one calorie of food we eat not even considering cooking and transportation. Soil degradation has turned our environment into land which can only grow food when it is heavily coated with pesticides and fertilizers most of which are made with oil or are petroleum based. Highways have allowed sprawl to the point where very large distances can easily be achieved by car allowing for almost a continuous city, no one ever has to see the real countryside. Our society has not developed in a way in which resources may be used sustainably. We have evolved and come to depend on cheap energy and cheap products. This film argues that this vast investment of infrastructure over the past fifty years into this suburban way of life has to and eventually will come to an end in the post peak oil era.
Our culture continues to maintain the façade that our way of life with constant spending and consuming can be continued forever. In Ontario, Canada a black out occurred because 100% of the energy capacity was reached. This caused rolling blackouts throughout eastern Canada and 57,000,000 people had no energy for a couple days. It was asserted that this was caused by an overload on the system during the first 90 degree day of the year even though the official reason was attributed to a falling branch and faulty transmission lines. Either way this should show us that electricity use will eventually have a limit. We can’t pump oil at an arbitrary rate, at some point the rate of extraction peaks after which no matter how much energy is put into the pump the same amount of oil can’t be taken out as before. The effect of this is that it will cost more to produce this oil “post-peak” due to increased difficulty of pumping it out and diminishing supply. This oil use is an ecological sustainability problem due to its pollution and health effects across the world but this film also points to how our way of life is not sustainable given the limited amount of oil and energy we have to perpetuate our lifestyles.
Many people have come to enjoy their casual open suburban lifestyles and these suburban people have a large voting power. This can create vast political pressure to procure more petroleum. Many businesses, people and governmental officials do not see the benefits of changing our way of operating creating what the documentary calls a “consensus curse.” Everyone agrees that there isn’t a problem with suburbia so there must not be one.
What parts of the film did you find most persuasive and compelling? Why?
I found some of the assertions within this movie about what it will be like living in this post peak era to be quite attention-grabbing. Throughout the movie it was suggested that there will be wars in the future as countries attempt to increase their supply of oil to maintain their way of operating a little while longer. The film asked questions like what if we begin to fight with china over the remaining oil and all the products we purchase that are made there are no longer reaching us? It noted that the U.S. gets 15% of their natural gas from Canada which is 50% of their production. If Canada needs more of this percentage then this distribution between countries will change and tensions will most likely develop. Also they asserted that the U.S. interests in the Middle East are due entirely to oil; proposing that these types of wars like in Afghanistan and Iraq will continue to occur as long as we try to stay dependent on oil. Although I am not entirely sure if I agree with the majority of these thoughts it is interesting to ponder as to how much oil a country may be willing to go to war for as supplies diminish?
What parts of the film were you not compelled or convinced by?
The film implemented a number of old style videos throughout the film associated with suburban life. Although these were played during the scenes explaining the development of suburbia in America which seems logical to include old footage when talking about the past I found them to be somewhat annoying and confusing. I also felt too much time was spent in the beginning of the film talking about how suburban life was brought about. The film should have focused on current trends and what we can do to reverse this problem.
What additional information does the film compel you to seek out? Where do you want to dig deeper and what connections do you want to make with other issues, factors, problems, etc?
This film made me want to look more into how this suburban living could be changed. It doesn’t seem like the answer is to just move everyone into already crowded major cities and abandon all other land that we have already developed. The film did mention some possible solutions but I would be interested in knowing what results have been achieved to date. Examples of communities or areas that have attempted to adapt a suburban area or develop a new area that encourages more sustainable daily actions or reduces the impacts caused by sprawl. Also I noticed during the discussion on “new urbanism” a scene was shown of downtown Saratoga Springs. I recognized a sign from downtown immediately as I live near this area and frequently may be found driving through there. There are numerous large apartment/ condo complexes being developed throughout downtown. I was told by another professor in a different class this was being done for profit reasons associated with the track and the city was zoning these areas heavy residential to create heavy localized populations to flush downtown businesses and make it a lively area and more of a social destination throughout the year. I would be interested in knowing if there was any new urban type movement involved within this development or in general within this town so close to mine.
What audiences does the film best address? What kind of imagination is fostered in viewers? Do you think the film is likely to change the way viewers think about and act on environmental problems?
Obviously the 50% of the population living in suburbs would be the primary target for this documentary. They are the ones to be affected the most by peak oil scenarios, especially the middle class suburban families who can’t abandon their homes and start over somewhere else when oil prices begin to rise. Although there may be little they can do about it as an individual the first step is to be aware of the issue. Infrastructure and city planners may want to watch these films as well as they are the ones with the potential to alter the way a city is being developed throughout the years to come.
What kinds of action or points of intervention are suggested by the film?
The film stressed that everyone has to prepare mentally for living locally. We should be thinking about what kind of jobs there will be and how we might survive without a car. It’s hard to retrofit many of the modern suburban areas into anything different or more sustainable. You can’t physically move things closer together or force people into different living situations. Some suggest taking a strip mall or other form of low density development and turning them into high density multiuse types of areas. “New urbanism” societies also promote similar types of societies in which walking becomes more convenient than driving. The problem is that we used up a lot of our wealth to develop this system and we don’t have leftover wealth to redevelop again. Also a lack of community makes trying to solve these problems hopeless for the individual; energy problems could become local community problem if energy was supplied buy some form of community means instead of it being a national or global problem. Local economies should be developed and the scope of products and businesses will have to be a lot more local and a lot less global. Wal-Mart’s and associated corporations have effectively destroyed much of the local economies in many small towns but this is a point of intervention in which we can attempt to resist these types of development and encourage more local retail and business.
What could have been added to this film to enhance its environmental education value?
The film should have focused less on what the problems are within this system and more on what individuals can do to reduce their impact as they continue living within suburbia. This could be difficult since suburban life is arguably fundamentally opposite to a sustainable infrastructure system. Although the film in my opinion will enroll its viewers and cause especially those already interested in sustainability to question their current way of living it leaves them with little short term action to change this problem. The movie in some parts took more of a tone of get ready for peak oil because its coming instead of this is what can be done to reduce your energy use.
Director: Gregory Greene
Release year: 2004
What is the central argument or narrative of the film?
Suburbia promises space, upward mobility, family life, convenience and affordability which has led to over half of the American population living in suburban areas. This becomes a problem as we are faced with peak oil and a lack of resources as no other way of life uses fossil fuel energy to the degree that suburbia does. This film calls the development of suburban living as the “greatest misallocation of resources in the modern world.”
What sustainability problems does the film draw out?
The development of suburban life in itself is and was a large organizational sustainability problem. Now we have become so dependent on this organization that it becomes a cultural and behavioral problem as well. The suburban idea was created out of a need for an antidote to the slums, noise and stench of the early industrializing cities. Instead of using our wealth to develop the quality within the cities themselves people began to spread out and move away from them. The initial suburbs that formed were actually in the country with no shopping centers present and everyone very wealthy with large Victorian vistas in park like settings. In the 1920s automobile development brought about the first types of automobile suburbs and the American dream quickly transformed into owning a country-style home. 500,000 homes sprung up in 1946, 1 million in 1947 with numbers continuing to increase throughout the decade. The middle class became widespread into the countryside.
This movement never slowed. In our modern society it is not uncommon to travel fifty to one hundred miles per day in a personal vehicle which is only cost effective due to the availability of cheap energy. We consume 10 calories of hydrocarbon energy for every one calorie of food we eat not even considering cooking and transportation. Soil degradation has turned our environment into land which can only grow food when it is heavily coated with pesticides and fertilizers most of which are made with oil or are petroleum based. Highways have allowed sprawl to the point where very large distances can easily be achieved by car allowing for almost a continuous city, no one ever has to see the real countryside. Our society has not developed in a way in which resources may be used sustainably. We have evolved and come to depend on cheap energy and cheap products. This film argues that this vast investment of infrastructure over the past fifty years into this suburban way of life has to and eventually will come to an end in the post peak oil era.
Our culture continues to maintain the façade that our way of life with constant spending and consuming can be continued forever. In Ontario, Canada a black out occurred because 100% of the energy capacity was reached. This caused rolling blackouts throughout eastern Canada and 57,000,000 people had no energy for a couple days. It was asserted that this was caused by an overload on the system during the first 90 degree day of the year even though the official reason was attributed to a falling branch and faulty transmission lines. Either way this should show us that electricity use will eventually have a limit. We can’t pump oil at an arbitrary rate, at some point the rate of extraction peaks after which no matter how much energy is put into the pump the same amount of oil can’t be taken out as before. The effect of this is that it will cost more to produce this oil “post-peak” due to increased difficulty of pumping it out and diminishing supply. This oil use is an ecological sustainability problem due to its pollution and health effects across the world but this film also points to how our way of life is not sustainable given the limited amount of oil and energy we have to perpetuate our lifestyles.
Many people have come to enjoy their casual open suburban lifestyles and these suburban people have a large voting power. This can create vast political pressure to procure more petroleum. Many businesses, people and governmental officials do not see the benefits of changing our way of operating creating what the documentary calls a “consensus curse.” Everyone agrees that there isn’t a problem with suburbia so there must not be one.
What parts of the film did you find most persuasive and compelling? Why?
I found some of the assertions within this movie about what it will be like living in this post peak era to be quite attention-grabbing. Throughout the movie it was suggested that there will be wars in the future as countries attempt to increase their supply of oil to maintain their way of operating a little while longer. The film asked questions like what if we begin to fight with china over the remaining oil and all the products we purchase that are made there are no longer reaching us? It noted that the U.S. gets 15% of their natural gas from Canada which is 50% of their production. If Canada needs more of this percentage then this distribution between countries will change and tensions will most likely develop. Also they asserted that the U.S. interests in the Middle East are due entirely to oil; proposing that these types of wars like in Afghanistan and Iraq will continue to occur as long as we try to stay dependent on oil. Although I am not entirely sure if I agree with the majority of these thoughts it is interesting to ponder as to how much oil a country may be willing to go to war for as supplies diminish?
What parts of the film were you not compelled or convinced by?
The film implemented a number of old style videos throughout the film associated with suburban life. Although these were played during the scenes explaining the development of suburbia in America which seems logical to include old footage when talking about the past I found them to be somewhat annoying and confusing. I also felt too much time was spent in the beginning of the film talking about how suburban life was brought about. The film should have focused on current trends and what we can do to reverse this problem.
What additional information does the film compel you to seek out? Where do you want to dig deeper and what connections do you want to make with other issues, factors, problems, etc?
This film made me want to look more into how this suburban living could be changed. It doesn’t seem like the answer is to just move everyone into already crowded major cities and abandon all other land that we have already developed. The film did mention some possible solutions but I would be interested in knowing what results have been achieved to date. Examples of communities or areas that have attempted to adapt a suburban area or develop a new area that encourages more sustainable daily actions or reduces the impacts caused by sprawl. Also I noticed during the discussion on “new urbanism” a scene was shown of downtown Saratoga Springs. I recognized a sign from downtown immediately as I live near this area and frequently may be found driving through there. There are numerous large apartment/ condo complexes being developed throughout downtown. I was told by another professor in a different class this was being done for profit reasons associated with the track and the city was zoning these areas heavy residential to create heavy localized populations to flush downtown businesses and make it a lively area and more of a social destination throughout the year. I would be interested in knowing if there was any new urban type movement involved within this development or in general within this town so close to mine.
What audiences does the film best address? What kind of imagination is fostered in viewers? Do you think the film is likely to change the way viewers think about and act on environmental problems?
Obviously the 50% of the population living in suburbs would be the primary target for this documentary. They are the ones to be affected the most by peak oil scenarios, especially the middle class suburban families who can’t abandon their homes and start over somewhere else when oil prices begin to rise. Although there may be little they can do about it as an individual the first step is to be aware of the issue. Infrastructure and city planners may want to watch these films as well as they are the ones with the potential to alter the way a city is being developed throughout the years to come.
What kinds of action or points of intervention are suggested by the film?
The film stressed that everyone has to prepare mentally for living locally. We should be thinking about what kind of jobs there will be and how we might survive without a car. It’s hard to retrofit many of the modern suburban areas into anything different or more sustainable. You can’t physically move things closer together or force people into different living situations. Some suggest taking a strip mall or other form of low density development and turning them into high density multiuse types of areas. “New urbanism” societies also promote similar types of societies in which walking becomes more convenient than driving. The problem is that we used up a lot of our wealth to develop this system and we don’t have leftover wealth to redevelop again. Also a lack of community makes trying to solve these problems hopeless for the individual; energy problems could become local community problem if energy was supplied buy some form of community means instead of it being a national or global problem. Local economies should be developed and the scope of products and businesses will have to be a lot more local and a lot less global. Wal-Mart’s and associated corporations have effectively destroyed much of the local economies in many small towns but this is a point of intervention in which we can attempt to resist these types of development and encourage more local retail and business.
What could have been added to this film to enhance its environmental education value?
The film should have focused less on what the problems are within this system and more on what individuals can do to reduce their impact as they continue living within suburbia. This could be difficult since suburban life is arguably fundamentally opposite to a sustainable infrastructure system. Although the film in my opinion will enroll its viewers and cause especially those already interested in sustainability to question their current way of living it leaves them with little short term action to change this problem. The movie in some parts took more of a tone of get ready for peak oil because its coming instead of this is what can be done to reduce your energy use.